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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Went to dinner at Tavern 58 at Gibbs last night. This was a new restaurant for both of us. Geoff had heard good things about it at work, so we decided to give it a try. It's located at University & Gibbs, really in the heart of the city. A classy looking menu & exterior, but a name with "Tavern" in it, I didn't really know what to expect... Keep reading to find out what we thought!

AtmosphereThe building is very nice from the outside, there are two outdoor seating areas: one covered, one uncovered. The parking lot directly next to the building only can fit about 6 cars, but there's additional parking in the back of the building on the opposite side of Gibbs. I'd recommend parking over there as it was a tight fit next to the building.

Inside, Tavern 58 is decorated very tastefully. You walk into a bar area, and then there's a dining room off of that. We think there was another dining room in back of that one, but we didn't see it, so I can't be sure. I can see where it gets its name...it's not a very large place. And it does have a feeling of a neighborhood Tavern. Geoff and I had on jeans and nice tops, but I noticed that most people had on khakis. I didn't feel too out of place, but it's something to note.

ServiceService here was excellent. As soon as we walked in we were greeted and shown to a table. Our waiter (Chris) did an great job of being around when we needed him to be, but not really hovering either. When Geoff had a question about the Scotch selection and he didn't know the answer instead of just brushing it off, he went to find out the answer. (In my book that earns you brownie points. I appreciate effort.) He was very friendly and very efficient.

Food(and drink)As I mentioned previously, there's a bar area when you first walk into the restaurant. They have a full bar selection, beer, wine, liquor...after dinner drinks, a very decent listing of scotch (or so Geoff says...I'll take his word on it!) Below is a poor shot of their scotch selection. On the opposite side they had listed their specialty cocktails and martinis. I was boring and went with a glass of wine. Geoff had a glass of scotch (they ran between $8-14. Not bad.)

I wound up ordering the mac & cheese for my main dish, so I wanted to start off with something. I was debating between the soups...a onion soup & a shrimp bisque...or a salad. I went with the Caesar Salad:

It was very tasty. Nothing really special, very light, not an overpowering dressing, it was a great starter.

And as mentioned, for my entree I went with the mac & cheese. This was an option under their "comfort foods" section, and well, I'm a mac & cheese fiend. I love it, so I had to try it.

Now, part of the reason why I chose to get a salad before the mac & cheese is that I wasn't expecting this portion size...it was huge. I felt like I kept eating and I barely made a dent in it. I finally had given up and when our waiter came around to see if we needed anything more, I request a box and he said, "yeah, that's an adult portion of mac & cheese."

Apart from the size, it was very tasty. Sometimes I'm nervous about mac & cheese at a restaurant because they'll let it sit all day in a half pan and just scoop when someone orders it. This wasn't. I'm sure the cheese sauce and pasta were put together ahead of time, but it was baked fresh, which made me happy. Everything went together just lovely.

Geoff had the sirloin, medium rare.

It was perfectly cooked and tender. I tried a bite and it was melt in your mouth delicious. The potatoes underneath had horseradish in them, which Geoff loved. (I wouldn't have, but it wasn't my dish!) Half way through he remembered what was in them and why he was liking them so much! A very hearty dish and there was nothing left on his plate when he was done!

To top off our meal we split the Tavern 58 Sundae. It was made with Candied Pecan Ice Cream. It was a nice bit of sweet to end with.

Final ThoughtsI was pleasantly surprised by Tavern 58. I didn't quite know what to expect when looking at the website. Here's their menu (warning: pdf.) What's interesting to me is that their dishes run from $8-24. So it's a place that if you're going with a group of friends and no one can agree how much money they want to spend, it'd be good to go to! And I can see us frequenting here fairly often because of the lower priced menu items. I highly recommend Tavern 58.